with some more well aimed phone calls from Mike I was off for a day of viticulture with some more Oddbins-stocked wineries…

Both Pertaringa and Chalk Hill are Growers-turned winemakers, in part perhaps as was suggested due to their poor treatment by the large firms who bought most of their grapes, but also to give them more control of what is going on in their own vineyards.

I started off (with a pretty stodgy head after more than a few glasses of wine with Mike the night before, with Richard Leask at Pertaringa. Pertaringa have 150 hectares under vine, and from fairly recent beginnings in making their own wines in 1991 when Richrd’s father and Geoff Hardy got together, they now turn half of these grapes into their own wine. With their expertise in the vines though, it was interesting to drive through with Richard (who was sporting a Mo-vember ‘tache – an annual event toraise money and awareness for Prostate cancer – I had noticed quite a few dodgy looking moustachios in town, and now I knew why!).

As well as using some Biodynamic practices (I noticed the odd-looking aparatus used for mixing the 500s treatments), the vines are fairly closely managed at Pertaringa, with vines being chopped and changed to suit the current and forecasted demand for different varieties and so on. I got a bit snap-happy here, so I will just talk you through some of the pictures… The first row of vines above, ad been grafted. When vines are deemed to be a poor match to either demand, or the site is just not working with the local terroir, rather than ripping out the vines and starting from scratch, the aged roots, which have dug down deep into the soil, are used to graft on new shoots of the desired vine variety.

This vine had in the past been grafted from Shiraz to something else, but with the increased emand for Shiraz in recent years, the vines had simply been chopped back, allowing the original Shiraz to regrow – genius!

Another change in practices has come due to the change in demand for different quality of fruit. In the 1980s, focus was on yield for their large volume customers, so the vines were grown taller and as far as possible, machinery was used to keep costs down… these vines, due to their irregular growth, have bunches that ripen at different rates depending on where they came from – these grapes were then harvested when the average ripeness was about right, so the quality, a mix of over ripe, ripe and under ripe was budget too. Now many of these double cordon vines are being carefully cut back to produce a more ordered single cordon, all at one level and easier to manage, with this improvement in quality there comes an obvious reduction in yield. 

Then it was back to the cellar door, for some much needed air conditioning and rehydration, before embarking on a tasting of the range, and despite the hangover, my palate was pretty fresh! A couple of my favourites were the above Bonfire Block Semillon, and the Two Gentlemens Grenache (the two gents are of course Richards Dad, Ian Leask and Geoff Hardy – yes, that ’Hardy’ family).

I am not usually a lover of Semillon on its own, it can often add a bit of weight or acidity to a blend, but all too often it can be too much in the minerally acidity direction, or too oaked and oily rich. The Bonfire Block is ‘just right’ with delicate use of oak detectable on the nose, with some caramel along with freshness and orage blossom. The palate starts with a very vivid pear fruit character (not pear drops, but fresh juicy pears) moving on to fresh but balanced acidity, helping the fresh fruit lead on to a touch of light caramel on the finish.

The Two Gents Grenache – yes another Grenache! looks like McLaren Vale is running with this grape! – well they have been growing it for over 100 years down here! This particular wine is made from a single block of only 3 hectares from their large estate, so there’s no back up fruit if it’s goes wrong in the vineyard… The core of the vines (and resulting wine) are very old vines, with grafts taken from these vines planted alongside them in 1991 making up the rest of the block.

The wine ertainly has this two layered character – dusty deep fruit with some dried out lavender aromatics from the old vines, and a juicy fruit bomb from the younger vines. This is a very consumer friendly wine, thanks to the forward fruit, but has depth and interest, although the finish is a little too warm from the alcohol… once the newer vines find their legs a bit this with I’m sure, become more harmonious and be well worth looking out. Until then, it’s still no ugly duckling and could be worth a try..

Jock Harvey of Chalk Hill was another fantastically helpful source of contacts and feet in doors when I reached McLaren Vale, although he was up in Scotland at one of the very events that I met him at last year -  the Edinburgh Oddbins wine fair! But making up for missing Jock, the day I visited Chalk Hill, the rest of the clan, John Harvey his Dad, and Tom Harvey his brother, as well as Emmanuelle the winemaker and Matt the viticulturalist were doing a walk-though of their vines so I tagged along.

At this time of year, the vines are in flower, with some varieties aleady finished, and others just bursting as we were walking through. This time of year, decisions regarding the likely yields of the vines, any special treatment different sections might need and so on. We visited their different vineyards, and there were discussions over which blocks might be used in their different wines, as decisions made now will determine which blocks they are going to have to get busy selling to other producers… as they only use 30% of their fruit in their own wines.

These walk-throughs are usually done 3 times in the season: now, during flowering, again at ’bunch set’ to determine if any more work needs to be done on the vines during ripening and finally right before the harvest to test the ripeness of the grapes and decie when to pick them.

As well as examining the vines in person, infa red images are taken of the vines to identify different canopy densities, and using years of data, this information can be used to infer characteristics of how the vines will develop and how the grapes will ripen. It was really interesting to hear about the many hundreds of decisions that have to be made – and also made me realise how little I know, having learned most of my viticultural knowledge from books ( a few years ago) – I am really looking forward to getting involved and learning in the field (literally) when I get to New Zealand in February!

ps. One of my favourite 7 quid wines from last year in the Oddbins range was the Chalk Hill ‘Procrastinator’ Cabernet Franc not just because of the name – even though I am a massive procrastinator (I also tend to go off on tangents, so their ‘Side Track’ suits me pretty well too!) So get off the couch, stop facebooking, and go and buy some!